Fab: The Intimate Life of Paul McCartney

The living embodiment of the Beatles, a musical juggernaut without parallel, Paul McCartney is undoubtedly the senior figure in pop music today. In this authoritative biography, journalist and acclaimed author Howard Sounes leaves no stone unturned in building the most accurate and extensive profile yet of music's greatest living legend. He is one of the biggest stars that has ever existed, the only key member left from the unquestioned 'biggest band of all time'.

Bim says:"So good and so interesting."

McCartney: living legend

The living embodiment of the Beatles, a musical juggernaut without parallel, Paul McCartney is undoubtedly the senior figure in pop music today. In this authoritative biography, journalist and acclaimed author Howard Sounes leaves no stone unturned in building the most accurate and extensive profile yet of music's greatest living legend. He is one of the biggest stars that has ever existed, the only key member left from the unquestioned 'biggest band of all time'.

How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition

Great music is a language unto its own, a means of communication of unmatched beauty and genius. And it has an undeniable power to move us in ways that enrich our lives-provided it is understood.If you have ever longed to appreciate great concert music, to learn its glorious language and share in its sublime pleasures, the way is now open to you, through this series of 48 wonderful lectures designed to make music accessible to everyone who yearns to know it, regardless of prior training or knowledge.

How to Listen to and Understand Opera

To watch any opera lover listen to a favorite work, eyes clenched tight in concentration and passion, often betraying a tear, is to be almost envious. What must it be like, you might think, to love a piece of music so much?And now one of music's most gifted teachers is offering you the opportunity to answer that very question, in a spellbinding series of 32 lectures that will introduce you to the transcendentally beautiful performing art that has enthralled audiences for more than 400 years.

Creativity Inc.

As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: To make the world's first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream first as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged an early partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later and against all odds, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever.

Seven Classic Plays

Now, for the first time in audio, Blackstone presents seven great plays in one volume: Euripides' Medea, Shakespeare's The Tempest, Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid, Dumas' Camille, Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, Shaw's Arms and the Man, and Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. These productions illustrate the development of European drama from ancient times to the threshold of the modern theater.

Under Milk Wood (Dramatised)

A classic BBC Radio full-cast production of Dylan Thomas' poetic play for voices starring Richard Burton as the narrator. To begin at the beginning: it is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black.... When Richard Burton breathed the opening words of 'Under Milk Wood' into a microphone, broadcasting history was made.

The History Boys (Dramatised)

Richard Griffiths, Clive Merrison, and Frances de la Tour star as part of the National Theatre cast. At a boys' grammar school in Sheffield, eight boys are being coached for the Oxbridge entrance exams. It is the mid-eighties, and the main concern of the unruly bunch of bright sixth-formers is getting out, starting university and starting life.

The Art of Creative Thinking

The secrets of creative thinking by a lecturer at the world famous St. Martin's College of Art who has spent a lifetime researching innovative thinkers. A scuba-diving company faces bankruptcy because sharks have infested the area. Solution? Open the world's first extreme diving school. The Art of Creative Thinking reveals how we can transform ourselves, our businesses, and our society through a deeper understanding of human creativity.

The Complete Barchester Chronicles (Dramatisation)

Here is a new audio edition of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of Anthony Trollope's gently satirical tales of provincial life, available together in one download. Nearly 20 hours of ironic, witty, and wonderfully written drama is contained in this audiobook. The cast includes Anna Massey, Alex Jennings, David Haig, Rosemary Leach, Kenneth Cranham, Emma Fielding, and Brenda Blethyn.

Bleak Expectations: The Complete Second Series

Bleak Expectations is the remarkable adventures of young Philip Bin as he struggles to rescue himself and his sisters from the plotting of his guardian, the scheming, evil and badly-named Mr Gently Benevolent, and the blood-curdling Hardthrasher brothers.

Farewell to the East End

Written by Jennifer Worth, Farewell to the East End is one of the trilogy of memoirs upon which the popular BBC series Call the Midwife is based. London's East End in the 1950s was a vibrant place-a close-knit community of families where children made playgrounds on bombsites and a lively social scene emerged.

Bleak Expectations: The Complete First Series

A Victorian epic of awful schools inc the aptly named St Bastards, worse prisons, nuns at St Bitches, giant rabbits, and long lost super-hero aunts, in the style of Charles Dickens after far too much gin.

Rock Stars Stole My Life!: A Big Bad Love Affair with Music

In a sodden tent at a '70s festival, the teenage Mark Ellen had a dream. He dreamt that music was a rich meadow of possibility, a liberating leap to a sparkling future, an industry of human happiness - and he wanted to be part of it. Thus began his 50-year love affair with rock and roll. From his time at the NME and Smash Hits to Radio One, Old Grey Whistle Test, Live Aid, Q, Select, Mojo, and The Word magazines, he's been at the molten core of its evolution, and watched its key figures from a unique perspective.

The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs

Unlike all previous versions of rock 'n' roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects 10 songs recorded between 1956 and 2008 and then proceeds to dramatize how each embodies rock 'n' roll as a thing in itself in the story it tells, inhabits, and acts out - a new language, something new under the sun.

What Are You Looking At?: 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of What Are You Looking At? by Will Gompertz, read by Roy McMilllan. What is modern art? Why do we either love it or loathe it? And why is it worth so much damn money? Join Will Gompertz on a dazzling tour that will change the way you look at modern art forever. From Monet's water lilies to Van Gogh's sunflowers, from Warhol's soup cans to Hirst's pickled shark, hear the stories behind the masterpieces, meet the artists as they really were, and discover the real point of modern art.

The Gruffalo

Here's a rhyming story of a mouse and a monster. Little mouse goes for a walk in a dangerous forest. To scare off his enemies, he invents tales of a fantastical creature called the Gruffalo. So imagine his surprise when he meets the real Gruffalo.

A View from the Bridge

Italian-American immigrant life in the 1950s textures this searing drama of love and revenge. Longshoreman Eddie Carbone is devoted to his wife, Beatrice, and to his niece, Catherine. When Beatrice's impoverished Sicilian cousins enter the U.S. illegally in the hope of finding work, Eddie gives them a helping hand. But when Catherine and one of her cousins fall in love, Eddie's affection for his niece turns into obsession.

The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance

Winner of the 2010 COSTA Biography Award. A total of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his Great Uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined....

Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Art & Fear explores the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way. This is a book about what it feels like to sit in your studio or classroom, at your wheel or keyboard, easel or camera, trying to do the work you need to do. It is about committing your future to your own hands, placing free will above predestination, choice above chance. It is about finding your own work.

The Symphonies of Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven is justifiably acclaimed as one of the most revered composers in the history of Western music-a genius once characterized as a "Titan, wrestling with the gods." There is no better way for you to understand the full impact of that description than to not only listen to all nine of his magnificent symphonies, but to do so with a full understanding of what this great composer was saying and the circumstances that drove him up to and beyond what had once been considered the limits of musical expression.

The Beatles - All These Years: Volume One, Tune In. Part One: From The Beginning ... To 1960

The Beatles have been in our lives for half a century and surely always will be. Still, somehow, their music excites, their influence resonates, their fame sustains. New generations find and love them, and while many other great artists come and go, the Beatles are proving beyond eclipse. So ... who really were these people, and just how did it all happen? 'The Beatles story' is everywhere. Told wrong from early on, rehashed in every possible way and routinely robbed of its context, this is a phenomenon in urgent need of a bright, new approach.

Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY and the Lost Story of 1970

January 1970: the Beatles assemble one more time to put the finishing touches on Let It Be; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are wrapping up Déjà Vu; Simon and Garfunkel are unveiling Bridge Over Troubled Water; James Taylor is an upstart singer-songwriter who's just completed Sweet Baby James. Over the course of the next twelve months, their lives---and the world around them---will change irrevocably.

Mick Jagger

Bestselling biographer Philip Norman offers an unparalleled account of the life of a living legend, Mick Jagger. From Home Counties schoolboy, to rebel without a cause, to Sixties sensation and global idol, Norman unravels the myth of the inimitable frontman of The Rolling Stones.

John Lennon: The Life

For more than a quarter of a century, Philip Norman's internationally best-selling Shout! has been unchallenged as the definitive biography of the Beatles. Now, at last, Norman turns his formidable talent to the Beatle for whom belonging to the world's most beloved pop group was never enough. Drawing on previously untapped sources, and with unprecedented access to all the major characters, here is the most complete and revealing portrait of John Lennon that is ever likely to be published.

Scar Tissue

As lead singer and songwriter for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Anthony Kiedis has lived life on the razor's edge. Much has been written about him, but until now, we've only had his songs as clues to his experience from the inside. In Scar Tissue, Kiedis proves himself to be as compelling a memoirist as he is a lyricist, giving us a searingly honest account of the life from which his music has evolved.

Creativity Inc.

As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: To make the world's first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream first as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged an early partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later and against all odds, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever.

Trust Me, I'm Dr Ozzy

By rights, Ozzy Osbourne should not be alive. He spent forty years on a hell-raising, bat-biting, ant-snorting*, drink and drug-fuelled bender. He broke his neck going two miles an hour on a quad bike and died twice in a chemically induced coma. And yet - at 62 years old - he is healthier and happier than ever. He is a walking medical miracle. So who better to offer the public medical advice and support?

A Natural Woman

Includes exclusive bonus material: - a specially composed piano track - original instrumental pieces - a capella performances throughout A memoir by the iconic singer-songwriter chronicling her story from her beginnings in Brooklyn through her remarkable success as one of the world's most acclaimed musical talents, to her present day as a leading performer and activist.

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century

The Rest Is Noise takes the listener inside the labyrinth of modern music, from turn-of-the-century Vienna to downtown New York in the '60s and '70s. We meet the maverick personalities and follow the rise of mass culture on this sweeping tour of 20th-century history through its music.

All Cheeses Great and Small: A Life Less Blurry

This is the story of Alex James's transition from a leading light of the Britpop movement in the 1990s, to gentleman farmer, artisan cheese-maker and father of five. All Cheeses Great and Small is the follow-up memoir to Alex James's first book, Bit of a Blur, the story of his excessive pop star lifestyle during the nineties. But now Alex has grown up, fallen in love and got married.

Rock Stars Stole My Life!: A Big Bad Love Affair with Music

In a sodden tent at a '70s festival, the teenage Mark Ellen had a dream. He dreamt that music was a rich meadow of possibility, a liberating leap to a sparkling future, an industry of human happiness - and he wanted to be part of it. Thus began his 50-year love affair with rock and roll. From his time at the NME and Smash Hits to Radio One, Old Grey Whistle Test, Live Aid, Q, Select, Mojo, and The Word magazines, he's been at the molten core of its evolution, and watched its key figures from a unique perspective.

Wishing on the Moon: The Life and Times of Billie Holiday

No singer has been more mythologized and more misunderstood than jazz legend Billie Holiday, who helped to create much of the mystique herself with her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues - and this authentic biography sets the record straight.

Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul

Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul documents the beloved singing star's rocky personal life and internationally acclaimed show business career. An in-depth and frank examination of Aretha, this definitive biography traces her career from her beginnings as a 12-year-old member of a church choir in the early 1950s, recording her first album at the age of 14, a major recording contract at 18, and stardom in her 20s, right up through her headline-grabbing 2010 health scare, to her triumphant return: singing to her cheering Detroit hometown fans in summer 2011.

Dream On: Aerosmith Up Close and Personal

More than just a heavy metal contender, Aerosmith has legitimized hard rock as a musical genre. Listen to the band recall their early beginnings and find out about their (mis)adventures on the road to incredible success.

Castles Made of Sand: The Jimi Hendrix Story

Born into a working class family in Seattle, Jimi Hendrix had a tough time growing up. Eventually, however, he fell in love with the guitar, and the rest is music history. This title features never-before-heard interviews with Jimi Hendrix; Noel Redding; Jimi's family, including his father Al Hendrix; Jack Bruce, Denny Laine; and Paul McCartney.

The Man Called Cash

Johnny Cash was a poor sharecropper's son from Arkansas who became one of the most influential figures in American music. In the 1950s he embarked on a music career that took him to the heights of fame and wealth but also to the depths of addiction and despair. From these tensions Johnny Cash created a haunting music, exploring the dark side of himself, and others, in a voice that sometimes sounded as old as the Grand Canyon.

17

In 17, Drummond analyses the past, present, and possible future of music and the ways in which we hear and relate to it. He references his own contributions to the canon of popular music, and he provides fascinating insider portraits of the industry and its protagonists. But above all, he questions our ideas of music and our attitude to sound, introducing us throughout this provocative and superbly written book to his current work, The17.

My Dearest Love: A Collection of Love Poetry

This collection of love poetry is romantic. It will make the person to whom you read it feel love and passion. This book is recommended to anyone wanting to serenade their love with words of affection. These poems are great to use during romantic evenings, on dates, at engagement parties at weddings, on Valentines Day, and for anniversaries.

The Contemporaries: Travels in the 21st-Century Art World

From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential audiobook offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance.

Twisted Mist

The cursed winds of the fiery mists flowing about the innocent graces of the forcefully broken. Painfully protruding the poetically damned souls still wandering the world in search of sinister practice.

Citizen Keane: The Big Lies Behind the Big Eyes

When Adam Parfrey tracked down Walter Keane - the credited artist of the weepy waifs - for a San Diego Reader cover story in 1992, he discovered some shocking facts. Decades of lawsuits and countersuits revealed the reality that Keane was more of a conman than an artist and that he forced his wife, Margaret, to sign his name to her own paintings. As a result those weepy waifs may not have been as capricious an invention as they seemed.

This Nurturing Awe: Poems Inspired by the 99 Beautiful Names of God

When any of the great world religions is portrayed in media in simple black and white images and broad generalizations, the poets of the world really are called to remind everyone of the light that is also there, at the heart of the tradition. In this work, Kimberly Beyer introduces us to the 99 beautiful names of God and how each is a window into the divine, not just as a transcendent idea but as a manifest reality.

Superiors and Inferiors: Henry Clay Frick in Drama

In the early 1870s Henry Clay Frick, bred in the coal-lands of western Pennsylvania, foresaw the importance of coke in the Bessemer or Kelly process of steel-making. Superiors and Inferiors presents his ascendancy in the business of coke and sets forth his heavy wrangle with the union. This historical drama maintains the classical form of tragedy in English with seven scenes of dialogue and seven choral performances.

T. S. Eliot Reads The Waste Land, Four Quartets and Other Poems

The most famous, beautiful, and spiritually moving poems of the 20th century, read by the most famous poet. These are historic recordings of the cream of Eliot's poetry. It is always something of a revelation to listen to a poet reading his own words, and these recordings are no exception. Eliot clearly and evenly characterises and reveals the voices of some of his most important works in this excellent reading.

The Rape of Europa: The Intriguing History of Titian's Masterpiece

The Rape of Europa is one of Titian's great masterpieces, a work charged with eroticism and classical mystique behind which lies a tale as compelling as the painting itself. Here Charles FitzRoy weaves a unique account of its history and the painting's movement following the rise and fall of the countries in which it has been housed. This is the tale of how Titian's masterpiece has captivated kings, nobles, artists, and lovers alike for over four centuries since its conception and continues to do so today.

Yakety Yak I Fought Back: My Life with The Coasters

If you don't know who Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Carl Gardner is, you should. The story of the lead tenor of pioneering vocal group The Coasters is brought to life in this audiobook. Telling the story of their rise to fame and laying bare the barriers that not only The Coasters but all black artists through the 1950s and '60s faced, it's a must for any music fan.

Up and Down with The Rolling Stones

Listen to the original source of Stones myths and legends about gangsters, celebrities, drugs, movies, orgies, death, blood changes, and magnificent songs coming to life. A must-have companion to Keith's excellent audiobook Life.

Traveling Junkie Diaries: The Endless Road

From Singer/Songwriter Scott Stevens comes a book of not just poetry, but of his own experiences and thoughts. All the way through this book is an emotional roller coaster that loops and bends around deceit, love, loss, and spiritual mirrors that take you up and down, under and over. Through the mind of a man that some say is a modern day Poe.

Time's Passing Reflections: The Collected Poems of Thelma Barselow

This collection of poetry spans the years and encompasses a lifetime of observations, broken down into simple, yet elegant and sometimes whimsical poems. Some of the poems are religious, others are merely soulful.

Introducing George the Poet: Search Party by George the Poet

The title is Search Party, the idea being that we're all out here looking for something, and my poems are my way of finding myself. A young black poet blending spoken word and rap; an inner city upbringing with a Cambridge education; a social consciousness with a satirical wit and infectious rhythm--George the Poet is the voice of a new generation. Search Party is a thought-provoking and deeply autobiographical collection.

Maud

One of the more noted romance poems by acclaimed author Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It carries a dark undertone and was almost universally opposed when published in 1855. It gained attention as its parts and pieces were used in other popular culture and is most often remembered today as among Tennyson's best poems. Narrated by Glenn Hascall.

The Trial of Phillis Wheatley

On the eve of the American Revolution in the fall of 1772, 18-year-old Phillis Wheatley, the household slave of John and Susanna Wheatley, was invited to appear before 18 of Boston's most prominent men in the Governor's Council Chamber in Boston to defend the premise that she was the author of a collection of poems. The so-called "jury" was comprised of the most prominent men in Boston. This was not a jury of her peers but rather one comprised of all white, all male, and largely middle-aged men.

Photography Hacks: The Complete Extensive Guide on How to Become a Master Photographer in 7 Days or Less: Photography Hacks and 7 Day Photography

Photography, either for professional or personal means, has injected itself into nearly every part of our lives. Whether it is something unique for the purpose, like a digital camera, or just that often used feature on your cellphone, it surrounds our lives. Tourist destinations are covered with what seems like two cameras to a person. Parties are filled with people "snapping" pictures of themselves, others or even décor.

The Road to Mecca

When her husband dies, aging Miss Helen begins to fill her home in the remote South African bush with strange sculptures made from beer cans and old headlights. A local clergyman and a young woman visitor try to decide whether Miss Helen's peculiar art is an outpouring of creativity or an outbreak of madness.

The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs

Unlike all previous versions of rock 'n' roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects 10 songs recorded between 1956 and 2008 and then proceeds to dramatize how each embodies rock 'n' roll as a thing in itself in the story it tells, inhabits, and acts out - a new language, something new under the sun.

Managing Artists in Pop Music, Second Edition: What Every Artist and Manager Must Know to Succeed

Music managers and artists will learn the secrets of successful management with scenarios from a manager's work life, along with the legal and business skills to master them. The book teaches future music managers and artists how to acquire clients, negotiate contracts, develop image, administer taxes and finances, and deal with promoters, media, attorneys, and unions. Packed with industry guidelines and sure-fire career tips from industry icons, this book is a professional springboard for music managers, recording artists, singers, and rock bands alike.

Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to My Life and Times

The music of Frank Sinatra, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and many other artists provides the score to the reflections of a musician on the road in this memoir of Neil Peart's travels from Los Angeles to Big Bend National Park. The emotional associations and stories behind each album Peart plays guide his recollections of his childhood on Lake Ontario, the first bands that he performed with, and his travels with the band Rush. The evocative and resonant writing vividly captures the meanderings of a musical mind, leading rock enthusiasts to discover inside information about Rush and the musical inspirations of a rock legend.

On Photography

First published in 1973, this is a study of the force of photographic images, which are continually inserted between experience and reality. When anything can be photographed, and photography has destroyed the boundaries and definitions of art, a viewer can approach a photograph freely, with no expectations of discovering what it means. This collection of six lucid and invigorating essays, with the most famous being "In Plato's Cave", make up a deep exploration of how the image has affected society.

Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson

In Catch a Wave, Peter Ames Carlin pulls back the curtain on Brian Wilson, one of popular music's most revered luminaries, as well as its biggest mystery. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before heard studio recordings, Carlin follows the Beach Boys from their earliest days through Brian's deepening emotional problems to his triumphant re-emergence with the release of Smile, the legendarily unreleased album he had originally shelved.

The Rape of Europa: The Intriguing History of Titian's Masterpiece

The Rape of Europa is one of Titian's great masterpieces, a work charged with eroticism and classical mystique behind which lies a tale as compelling as the painting itself. Here Charles FitzRoy weaves a unique account of its history and the painting's movement following the rise and fall of the countries in which it has been housed. This is the tale of how Titian's masterpiece has captivated kings, nobles, artists, and lovers alike for over four centuries since its conception and continues to do so today.

The History of Jazz, Second Edition

Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic - acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of the music, past and present. Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history.

The Kinks' The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (33 1/3 Series)

Ignored by virtually everyone upon its release in November 1968, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society is now seen as one of the best British albums ever recorded. Here, Andy Miller traces the perilous circumstances surrounding its creation, and celebrates the timeless, perfectly crafted songs pieced together by a band who were on the verge of disintegration and who refused to follow fashion.

Relentless: The Memoir

Yngwie Malmsteen's revolutionary guitar style - combining elements of classical music with the speed and volume of heavy metal - made him a staple of the 80s rock scene. Decades later, he's still a legend among guitarists, having sold 11 million albums and influenced generations of rockers since. In Relentless, Malmsteen shares his personal story, from the moment he burst onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere in the early 80s to become a household name in the annals of heavy metal.

The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire

Written by award-winning jazz historian Ted Gioia, this comprehensive guide offers an illuminating look at more than 250 seminal jazz compositions. In this comprehensive and unique survey, here are the songs that sit at the heart of the jazz repertoire, ranging from "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Autumn in New York" to "God Bless the Child," "How High the Moon," and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." Gioia includes Broadway show tunes written by such greats as George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, and classics by such famed jazz musicians as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and John Coltrane.

Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art

Here is a tautly paced investigation of one the 20th century's most audacious art frauds, which generated hundreds of forgeries - many of them still hanging in prominent museums and private collections today. Provenance is the extraordinary narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate deceptions in art history.

Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

From one of the most acclaimed and profound writers in the world of comics comes a thrilling and provocative exploration of humankind's great modern myth: the superhero. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Grant Morrison draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero - why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are... and what we may yet become.

Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

Inside the Business of Graphic Design: 60 Leaders Share Their Secrets of Success

Inside the Business of Graphic Design casts a precise and realistic light on the risks, requirements, and rewards of running a creative and successful design business. Whether you dream of setting up a small studio, or whether you've been on your own for years, this provocative guide is an important source of success strategies for every graphics professional.

Steely Dan's Aja (33 1/3 Series)

Aja was the album that made Steely Dan a commercial force on the order of contemporaries like Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles and Chicago. A double-platinum, Grammy-winning best seller, it lingered on the Billboard charts for more than a year and spawned three hit singles. Odd, then, that its creators saw it as an "ambitious, extended" work, the apotheosis of their anti-rock, anti-band, anti-glamour aesthetic. Populated by 35 mostly jazz session players, Aja served up prewar song forms, mixed meters and extended solos to a generation whose idea of pop daring was Paul letting Linda sing lead once in a while.

Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures: 33 1/3 Series

Joy Division's career has often been shrouded by myths. But the truth is surprisingly simple: over a period of several months, Joy Division transformed themselves from run-of-the-mill punk wannabes into the creators of one of the most atmospheric, disturbing, and influential debut albums ever recorded. Chris Ott carefully picks apart fact from fiction to show how Unknown Pleasures came into being, and how it still resonates so strongly today.

Titian: The Last Days

Toward the end of his long life, Tiziano Vecelli - known to the world ever since as Titian (circa 1488-1576) - was at work on a number of paintings that he kept in his studio, never quite completing them, as though wanting to endlessly postpone the moment of closure. Produced with his fingers as much as with the brush, Titian's last paintings are imbued with a unique rawness and immediacy without precedent in the history of Western art.

The Power of Music: Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song

The award-winning creator of the acclaimed documentary The Music Instinct: Science & Song, explores the power of music and its connection to the body, the brain, and the world of nature. Only recently has science sought in earnest to understand and explain this impact. One remarkable recent study, analyzing the cries of newborns, shows that infants' cries contain common musical intervals, and children tease each other in specific, singsong ways no matter where in the world they live.

Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies

An introduction to philosophy through film, Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies combines the exploration of fundamental philosophical issues with the experience of viewing films, and provides an engaging reading experience for undergraduate students, philosophy enthusiasts and film buffs alike. An in-depth yet accessible introduction to the philosophical issues raised by films, film spectatorship and film-making.

Tales from Country Music

Follow Gerry Wood on his journey with country music's biggest stars, featuring Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Shania Twain and many more familiar names in the industry. Tales from Country Music will take you backstage and behind the scenes with some of your favorite country music singers.